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Friday, 23 August 2013

A Battle That Can Be Won

Although
he is wrong that it need necessarily take several electoral cycles
(unfortunately, it looks as if it is going to), Jack Eddy writes:

Between
April and September 2012, nearly 21,000 people used food banks in the
south-west of England, while, in this year alone, 5,000 people have regularly
used food banks in the county of Norfolk.

These
figures are both an irrefutable sign of a growing rural poverty and a call to
Labour to reach out to rural Britain in a way it has not attempted since the
1920s.

There is
an ever-increasing problem of living standards in the rural world. For a start,
we are suffering from a housing crisis different to our urban cousins. The
issue of house affordability, which is worsening everywhere, is particularly
acute in the south.

In order
to secure a typical mortgage, a rural resident needs to earn at least £66,000 a
year. With the average income in rural areas standing at just over £20,000 a
year, you can see the problem. This is only made worse and more widespread by
the prevalence of second homes throughout the UK – but especially in Norfolk,
the Lake District, Northumberland and the south-west.

There is
also far less social housing in rural areas (13 per cent compared to 22 per
cent in cities). The situation is compounded further by protectionist planning
laws and a general urban containment, so the few houses that are built are
rarely in the rural areas that need them most.

The net
result of the rural housing crisis is that the countryside is an increasingly
unaffordable place to live for rural Britons, with severe potential effects on
rural communities and local identities as more and more rural natives are
forced to relocate.

That
said, there are many other issues that are worthy of mention – rural fuel
poverty, rural public transport and infrastructure, unemployment, small
businesses, rural health and social care, to name just a few – all of which are
important contributors to rural poverty.

Yet, the
reason I talk about housing is that this issue has technically already been met
with an ambitious response from Labour. Ed Balls has outlined a new national
policy that will instigate a massive housebuilding programme of 400,000 new
homes. So, what’s the problem?

This
policy, and others like it, does not have a rural dimension. In this case,
greater detail is needed:

How many of the 400,000 new house builds will be where the rural
housing crisis is most acute?

Will planning restrictions be modified or lifted? How will Labour
ensure that building is environmentally friendly?

What proportion of these new homes are to be ‘affordable housing’
and social housing?

How will Labour prevent new rural builds becoming second homes?

The
second problem is that, quite simply, Labour’s message does not carry in rural
areas, where the population – used to being ignored, especially by what they
see as an urban Labour party – is disinclined to vote Labour to begin with.

A Rural
Manifesto with a broad and ambitious mandate provides the answer to both
problems.
First,
such a document, which would enable the Labour party to take a big view of the
difficulties facing rural Britain, provides the medium to give national policy
that specifically rural dimension that the Labour movement has hitherto lacked.

Moreover,
a project of this scale, sympathetically developed from the viewpoint of rural
voters, with the extensive involvement and contributions of every rural CLP and
other rural groups, will enable Labour to reach out to new voters in the
countryside in a way that no other political party has attempted.

The
Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have fundamentally failed their rural
constituents, and UKIP would be a disaster for the rural voter. However, Labour
cannot win in rural Britain overnight. We must build rural support slowly over
several elections.

But some
unexpected rural seats can be won at the next general election and the rural
vote can make a significant contribution to Labour party victory in 2015.
The Rural
Manifesto represents the best way to achieve both a short-term election
contribution, as well as a long-term ambition to appeal to and win the rural
vote.

This is a
battle that can be won. We must now start preparing for that victory.